Guild Wars 2

I love the landscapes and the level of detail that ArenaNet put into it but I have trouble immersing myself in the atmosphere of each environment or area due to the generalized ambient music. I’m not saying I dislike the ambient music, nor do I find it extraordinary— it’s just ‘there’.

I would love to hear more pieces of music created for specific areas or zones, or even just the ability to tailor custom music more in-depth.

The Bard’s Valley area in Mount Maelstrom during the nighttime blew me away (picture below). Just imagine how much more of an impact areas like that could have with more specific pieces of music.

Anywho, that’s my first-world issue. Might just be me; after playing games like Okami and Alan Wake, other soundtracks might start to seem a bit mundane. Either way, not a big deal.

Anybody else feel similarly?

Yeah I’m with you there man.
Jeremy Soule really is a great composer however I kind of felt dissapointed with the soundtrack. Since to put it bluntly, it feels that I’m listening to the same track over and over regardless of the area I’m in. For example in Crucible of Eternity I’m listening to the same tracks that I’d listen in Gendarren Fields and it simply breaks the atmosphere of this really high tech asuran lab.

If it was an, for example, techno/trance track that matches the darkness and coldness of the asuran/Inquest technology and experiments. I think the dungeon would have more powerfull impact in terms of atmosphere and of the theme that it’s trying to set up.

But that’s just me :P

Oh, and I think this song here fits just right with the scenery you’ve just shown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdGlJOZxRuA

With you 100% on this one. The music in the game is beautiful and very well-composed but it just doesn’t have that “presence” that other game soundtracks have (the Zelda series comes to mind). That distant ambient kind of music works well for a game like Skyrim (also composed by Jeremy Soule), where if the music was too in-your-face all the time I think it would distract from the immersion of the game.

Guild Wars 2 is a completely different beast than the TES games though, both in terms of looks and in how it plays, and I think more “obvious” unique music for each area would actually make areas more immersive and give the game more personality overall. And hey, it worked for the super adventure box and the zephyr sanctum (I absolutely loved the zephyr sanctum music by the way).

I sometimes actually find myself just playing my own music in-game alot of the time, which is something I never do with other games.

I also agree.

If you hear JS’s music from a CD, it’ll sound fantastic, but in game it sounds generic.
As if A-net asked him to write random stuff in advance (and he did with little variety), and then they tried to fit these stuff in various game moments, realising that there isn’t enough music or variety in it to spice the zones and made them distinct.

Exception to this is Diessa plateau.
For some reason the music the is noticeable and memorable…

I’ve seen these posts ever since launch and I really wish Anet would do something about this, but I really doubt they will as they have more important gameplay issues to work on which is very true, but one day I would love to see each zone start off at least with a specific score from the soundtrack then cycle through some of the other tracks even if that means using Guild Wars 1 music to give each zone a bit more of a “memorable identity” and it would feel less “repetitive”. The first game did it nicely I really don’t know what happened since then. There is nothing wrong with the Soundtrack itself, but just how it’s used in the game zones that’s really poorly done. I mean everything is repetitive to the point that I cannot listen to the games soundtrack anymore so I turn it off because it gets so old.. which kind of breaks my heart I couldn’t imagine doing that with the first game.

You could tell me to use the “custom soundtrack playlist feature” but that is extremely limited. I can’t customize say in an Example: Frostgorge Sound to play a specific theme song then Wayfarer Foothills an entirely different theme to give it some kind of identity <— I’m limited to a custom playlist that would play the same tracks in each zone that won’t allow something like that to work.

Anet this is what is wrong. The Charr have about 6-7 zones. All of them play about the same 4-5 tracks over and over in each zone no matter which Charr zone it is. Same with all the Human and Norn zones etc. Let each specific zone at the very least start off with it’s own identifiable theme or two even before you cycle the rest of the tracks. I think fixing this would enhance the quality while playing, but I know you have more important gameplay matters. When I enter a zone, I want to hear a theme and be like “I love the Fireheart Rise theme” and set me in the mood for that zone. So If you get the chance please give it more variety, because right now it feels very off and not immersive at all. I’d glady do it myself, but I don’t work for Arena net :P

I really wish the Devs would see this… honestly, one of the reasons why I found exploring to be dull is because of this!! There is no ‘new’ content for our EARS! I am personally an animator and everyone knows that music is JUST as important as visual effects in setting a mood… guild wars 2 fails to capture this unfortunately.

I actually made a suggestion a long time before and they locked my threat (cuz i posted it in the wrong topic or something.. i forgot) but i will post it again.

Why don’t the developers let US choose what “ambient” music to put in OUR games? I understand that it can be very costly and time consuming for them to compose different music for all of the contents. So my suggestion is, why not just divide the contents apart into different folders in our game directory and allow us PLAYERS to choose for ourselves what kind of music we would like to have in THOSE specific contents? We ALREADY have a feature like this, but it is not content specified! It should be very simple to do and not costly at all since the Devs wont actually have to create anything new. Just give players the ability to!

If you guys think this is a good idea, please forward this to anyone that can make a difference. I am not active on the forums and I don’t know how it works. However, if they do go forward with this idea, I would definitely come back to guild wars 2 after quitting because of lack of content!

I turned off the music in game because it was pretty much the same piece over and over again, and at that point it had just gotten immensely boring. Perhaps there was slight variation, but I’ve resorted to listening to other music while playing the game instead.

However, I don’t really think this is a pressing issue either.